Includes bibliographical references (p. 267- 287) and indexes.

Preliminary Material -- The Social Situation of Orphans in Southern Africa, and in Zimbabwe in Particular -- Zimbabwe and its Orphans -- Theory and Practice in Understanding and Improving the Social Situation of ovcs in Southern Africa -- Systems, Social Development, and the Needs of ovcs -- Key Conceptual Frameworks for Understanding the Social Situation of ovcs -- The Zimbabwe Study of ovcs -- What Orphans Want?: Voices from the Field -- The Role of Theory in Social Planning for ovcs -- ovcs: Policy and Practice in a Holistic Tradition -- Project Management for ovcs in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa -- Moving Policy and Action Forward for the Benefit of ovcs in Zimbabwe Southern Africa -- References -- Names Index -- Subject Index.

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The voices of orphans and other vulnerable children and young people and of their carers and professional development workers are documented and analysed to both criticise the inadequacies of current social development work and to create a new, alternative theory and practice of project management in Zimbabwe and southern Africa. This is the first extensive and intensive empirical study of Zimbabwean orphans and other vulnerable children and young people. Chronically poor children and their carers can be corrupted or silenced by management systems which fail to recognise their basic human needs. Resilience in the face of such adversity is celebrated by the dominant project management ideology and practice but is a major barrier to achieve genuine sustainable improvements in the lives of vulnerable children. We propose a new person-centred project management approach aimed at delivering comprehensive services for orphans, which explicitly recognises the needs of orphans and other poor children to be fully socially, politically and economically included within their communities and which avoids the reinforcement of power based inequalities and their unacceptable consequences. The moral bankruptcy of much social development work in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Southern Africa is described and we delineate an alternative project management policy and practice.